Love always, Anonymous
by basil and dill
Summary: The letters Arthur and Merlin have written to each other throughout the years. The one trip up is that they never see the light of day.
1. Fireflies and Words

Dear Arthur,

There's a firefly burning a hole in my pocket. A pocket filled with lint, sweet wrappers, coins, and words I could never say. Words that were too heavy to pull out when the time was right, and even more so when the time was wrong. Words that managed to somehow stitch themselves to the fabric of my being – content and resigned to live within this dark and dusty confine. There were so many words I wanted to say to you, I don't know how they managed to fit in my pocket – they must be in concentrated form where only the best letters get to stay. They live like a jigsaw puzzle – coming apart only when I go to stand or we go over a bump in the road.

But the firefly, you see, that's the problem. Soon enough the hole will be large enough for the letters to trickle through and unbeknownst to me, I'll go through my day dropping letters like breadcrumbs from a fairy tale until my pockets will be so light I'll float off the ground up, up, up and never be found again.

Unless, that is, if you were to walk behind me. Would you notice? Would you notice the lonely letters littering the ground behind me? Or would you rather notice the dullness of my hair, the way the grey doesn't seem to catch the light? Or the rounded tilt to my shoulders? Or the way my knee seems to lock every few steps and I start limping until I feel the muscles loosen and the pain disappears?

Would you bend down and pick up the letters, even when I know that your hips ache and your knees hurt as mine do? Would you do that for me even if you weren't sure if the letters would mean anything at all? Would you do that simply because they've been warmed by my body, their edges sanded from the decades of rubbing against each other?

Would you recognise these eroded letters to be the one true secret I ever held from you?

As always,

Merlin


	2. Space

Dear Merlin,

For one night I lived in space.

Everywhere there was darkness – pure, satin darkness. I rested on a piece of rock, jagged and unrelenting beneath my back. I watched the universe pass above me as I floated down the current – a feather caught in an updraft. I watched my faults grow smaller and smaller as I drifted away, until I could no longer see them. I watched missed possibilities suffocate and slowly crumble into dust. I watched dreams grow, layer by layer, shining brighter and brighter. These dreams formed a star which burned so bright I had to shut my eyes, but I could still see it burned into my retinas. They burned brightly until one moment where they shook and exploded – fragments scattering and seeking a new home.

And then, there was you.

You took my hand and nudged me past my shattered dreams. You brought me to Saturn and sat with me on the carousel until my lungs didn't feel so heavy and the colours spun before me – my sadness drawn out of me by the centrifugal force.

You took me dancing on the sun – me in my scuffed shoes and you with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows. We danced until my loneliness burned away.

For one night I lived in the space between you and me.

Yours,

Arthur


	3. Maudlin

Dear Arthur,

I forget how maudlin you get when it's late at night, at the end of a long work week, and you're on the south side of tipsy.

It was a Friday night and I had large plans, which included a bowl of roasted chickpeas, my flannel pyjamas, a box of Kleenex, and a dvd of _The Book Thief._ Of course, I knew my best laid plans were going to disintegrate when I turned the corner in my hall and saw you sitting against my door – your knees bent, your elbows resting on top of them. Your collar was loosened from all your absentminded ministrations, that in itself should have clued me in to your state. Forgive me, this happens now and again. The strangest things will scramble my thoughts for a fraction of a second – things like the delicate line of your neck as you sit there with your eyes closed and your head tilted back against the door.

Sometimes, when it's reaching the early hours of the next day and the world is slowing down around us, there's a fragility woven through the air. In the cloak of midnight, with you sitting across from me in my cheap, creaky kitchen chair – our chairs so close that when you fidget you always knock against me – I find myself counting backwards in threes in my mind just so I can remember.

Because sometimes I forget.

Sometimes I forget the reason you were sitting by my door in the first place – because of the fight you had with Milo. How he yelled, you yelled, and then you stormed out, only to wander back to my place some hours later. I wish I could forget how it makes my heart ache when you show up like this – quiet and hopeful. You turn your head toward me and you look at me as if I can fix the world. I can barely fix my taxes.

I'd steal the moon for you if I could. Would Milo do that? I'd like to ask but I never do. Maybe I just don't want to know the answer.

So when you've stumbled your way across my flat and you've stretched out across my lumpy couch, you'll have to pardon me if I turn away for longer than it would necessarily take to grab a blanket. I'm just trying to re-route any maudlin thoughts of my own which are trying to conquer my brain. I can feel them sliding up my torso, one thought riding along every rib. They converge and give me heartburn.

When I drape the blanket over you, I wonder what you're able to read off my face in the dark because you reach out your hand and cover my own on top of the blanket – on top of your chest. The night freezes in this position, with me bent over you and your eyes focused more than they've been all night and searching for something in my own.

And then I forget.

With the whiskey erasing the titanium fortress you've built around yourself, you look softened around the edges – a charcoal sketch that's been smudged by gentle fingers. Your corners seem less sharp, like I'm less likely to cut myself on them. It makes me think that if I say what I've been wanting to say my words wouldn't end up in tattered shreds on the floor – confetti for all other unrequited bastards.

My throat swallows down the air that's required to turn thought into word. The air runs a lap in my lungs and ends up at an artist's home where it deftly gets carved into the words I've only let myself say at night, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling. My diaphragm gives the words a kick of courage and my lips part, the words nudging against the inside of my teeth.

Only you speak first.

"Merlin," you say, "you're a good friend."

You give me a soft smile, completely unaware of the words that have now deflated and crumpled in my mouth. It tastes like stupidity. You pat my hand once before your eyes slowly slide shut of their own accord.

 _Merlin, you're a good friend._

You can kill a man with those words.

As always,

Merlin


	4. Fools

Dear Merlin,

I must confess a secret of mine.

I've been sitting on it for so many years now that it's become a part of me – like my ring finger or my elbow – just another body part that doesn't require any second thought. This secret, it started off as something dusty and embarrassing; a thing that lingered on my tongue for barely a second before I tried to hide it, swallow it. But now, after so many years, it sits next to me like a tired friend. It brushes elbows with me every once in a while just to calm my nerves – to whisper promises of loyalty. It keeps me company when I stop by the bakery across the street to buy my bread, it matches my footfalls on my walk to work, and it sidles next to me on those cold nights where winter winds dance by my old, Victorian windows.

The secret, Merlin, is that I am a colossal fool.

My imagination has an uncanny ability to create these worlds where you and I collide to make something that supersedes the laws of physics. It erases the borders of reality and deftly rearranges the lines until it creates pictures that become inked into my mind for a shamefully long time. Pictures of your fingers brushing the back of my neck, pulling goosebumps out of me. Pictures of your shirts mixed in with mine in a wooden dresser we spent an entire afternoon putting together, only to finish and have three bolts left over. Pictures of just our hands, our hands and nothing else. Of how they've been weathered by the sun, creased by work, and how they rest next to each other and just barely touching.

I close my eyes and the pictures make my foolish heart stutter. A poor butterfly flew too close and got caught within the cage of my ribs and I can feel its anxious wings beat against my heart. I cough and the butterfly settles within the dust. Reality returns, painting over any pictures that are left, and time resumes.

Your hair falls into your eyes as you lean over me and spread the blanket, making sure that my feet are covered. You grab the end of the blanket and gently pull it up to my chest. I can feel the cold of your hands through my shirt as they brush against me. If I close my eyes right now I could almost fool myself into thinking some of those pictures were true.

So instead I move and catch your hand on top of the blanket. They're so cold and normally it would be cause for a joke and a few shared laughs but I don't have it in me because even in the dark I can see your eyes track up to meet mine.

And I don't know if it's because it's a quarter after tomorrow, because the drink has settled a little too hard, or because your hand is right on top of that nervous butterfly, but I let myself look without limit. The moment stretches between us and I watch has your face almost imperceptibly shifts. I can see that you're getting ready to say something but I know that I need to stop you.

Because in that brief moment I'd almost deluded myself into thinking that some of what I was feeling was reflected in your eyes. But reality is a dish that's best served cold. It's laughable because of the two of us we know that I'm more likely to wear the jester's costume.

It must be the drink.

It's a thought that's almost strong enough to soothe the nagging guilt I feel when I think of Milo. There are no assumptions there – we both know we're playing second fiddle to someone else. And while I'm ashamed to admit it, sometimes, at the end of the day it's better to be someone's second choice than no one's choice at all.

I catch my voice before you can find your own.

"Merlin, you're a good friend."

I pat your hand, close my eyes and pretend not to notice the way you jerk your hand away. The world will keep turning, the sun will rise, and tomorrow will be yet another day.

Yours,

Arthur


End file.
